Crimson Horizon
by Emonzaemon
Summary: A Chaos Marine story featuring a squad that has fallen into the darkest depths of a Necron Tomb-world. The main character is on the look for his battle-brothers, hoping to reunite and escape.


Crimson Horizon

Prologue

_I find this quite hard to believe I can go from conquering to fighting for my very own breath. Despite these sudden changes, I know now, not to judge those so lowly. Honor is a bitter thing._ Crys started to shimmy against the wall, even with the bulk of his Desecrated armor, the fallen Astartes moved with caution. Lurking through the dark tunnels of a sunken city, Crys would not be slain in the dark, alone. He gripped his stolen Chainsword. Not active, but even so that weapon can be proved just as deadly when activated. Altered and enhanced, he gave his sword the name of: Zaxphyr. He then moved on through the darkness. The runes and statistics on his visors senses would flicker every once in awhile. He took a nasty fall. Even his ceramite warplate could not withstand such a fall, or the thunderous crash. His threat rune flickered on and off, he kept ignoring it, looking around him. _No heat signatures. No signs of life, yet but this is becoming a pain._ He then voxed to the chat channel that was used to contact his squad: 'This is Crys, reporting in, is anyone from 13th Skull here?' no response. He continued down the tunnel until he found something that seemed to go up. The pathway leading up seemed to be made up of a strange texture of a smooth stone. He took off his helm, and drank in the dry lifeless air. _This air is rotten; the stench of death fills it._ He put his helmet back on continuing up the smooth walkway.

His helms senses as well as his enhanced hearing picked up a strange buzzing noise, coming from the top. His threat rune became a steady icon in his helms vision. He blinked to close it, but it would not dismiss itself. He then walked all the way up the strange ramp taking a peek of what laid above all. And the sight he saw was something to contain a problem for whatever life remained on the surface of the god forsaken world. There were many Necrons, more than any being would have wished to see. The sight of seeing so many awaken at one time was disturbing, and it seemed the assembly was perhaps a silent presentation of their conquest to rise and wipe the beings of flesh off this planet. Even in his days of fighting for 10,000 years of battles there was something that felt wrong about this assembly. They seemed to be in a stance of worship than a collection, as he saw this interesting stick in the earth. Its dark sickly green energy flowed freely among the crowd of dead machines. Occasional flickers of green lightning would ignite, and his helms interface would flicker on sync too. Despite this, he knew he had to go before someone or something found him. As Crys turned around, something had grabbed his pauldron, it was a forceful pull, and he reacted in a mid second, swinging his free arm with Zaxphyr at the unknown object. His helms senses ruined he could not decipher what was holding him. As his arm came down to land the blow, the figure threw its other arm into a parry, as he deflected the blow with its own weapon. A Chainsword, much like his own but this one he recognized. He immediately withdrew his weapon.

"Hello, brother." The man voxed and he stepped up into the eerie lighting. It was his squad member: Aifele. Aifele was his brother in arms as a fellow fighter and member of 13th Skull. Him and Crys have gone a long way together, since the grand betrayal to millennia of other battles. As his brother let go of Crys, he let a rather raspy sigh, his helmet was more damaged than his own. He watched him take it off, saying nothing to the sort.

"This air is rotten and putrid, I do not like It." he said, while he stalked forward to the ramp.

"Brother, where are the others?" asked Crys, staring into Aifele's back. _If Aifele is alive, then there is a good chance that the others may have lived._ He walked up to Aifele.

"Who knows? He is dead, probably." He chuckled. He froze in place, and looked back at Crys, with a look of confusion and concern. "What is up there? And what are you doing here anyways, Crys?"

Crys stopped, and looked up the ramp, he shook his head. "Well, I have seemed to have fallen a ways back, and I went down this tunnel leading here." He paused, "But as I walked up that ramp, there is a problem that persists."

"Necrons?" asked Aifele, not surprised.

"Indeed, however they seem to be in some sort of Assembly, and they seem to be doing something strange…" replied Crys.

"Nothing strange to them, they are robots. They kill, and make more." He crossed his arms in thought. "Well, maybe they are summoning something."

"What do you mean, Aifele? I am not familiar with Necrons." Said Crys not sure how Aifele knows so much about them.

"Think about it, Crys, there is most likely some sort of effect of their 'magic' causing them to summon up….probably they're almighty Necron Lord."

"Are you scared, Aifele?" sneered Crys.

"Not in the infinite hells I am, I just want to get off this damn rock, and be done with our business." He said gesturing his annoyance.

"Even so, do you have your Bolter with you?" inquired Crys. "Or maybe you have at least your Bolter pistol?" Aifele looked at him, and pointed to his legs, he had a bolter pistol with him, attached to his leg, but his bolter was not seen on him. _Damnit, it always ends up with worse come and worse go situations._ He gripped his chain sword, giving a thought of acknowledgement to the machine spirit within. He walked over to the ramp, while sighing, his vox releasing a raspy noise. He took off his helm, and closed his eyes.

"How sustainable is your armor, or more rather is it still just as functional before this fall?" asked Crys, still closing his eyes.

"It seems to be fine; my suits machine spirit is thriving for revenge and screaming out in rage. I don't blame it, I am very angry myself, when I get my hands on those damned corpses…" rambled on Aifele.

Crys shook his head, and started walking down the opposite way of the ramp, heading back in to the alien tunnels. Aifele continued with him both walking steadily but cautiously. These two "Traitor Astartes" of the Iron Warriors made their way around the sunken dead tombworld of Khramus X'il XIV.

Chapter 1: decimation

"This is unbelievable!" shouted Kelic as he fired up his bolter again. As Kelic was rambling on and on in anger Crys turned and saw that the wave of Necrons they just killed have risen again to fight once more. He himself too started to fire his bolter again, while the rest of his squad, including himself, were falling back to the bays on the dead world. They thought they could manage a little too much of this mission. They thought they could siege that planet, but it they were wrong they needed more firepower. Even as a legion with the most vehicles and tanks, 3 squads of normal astartes weren't enough. Crys cursed and his bolter kept chewing up ammo. He looked to his left and voxed to his squad brother Aifele: "We need to flank their left, they are weak there!"

"I am in need of some fragmentation grenades to do that! I am all out!" he voxed back. Crys cursed, and pulled off a belt that had 5 of the 10 slots filled, he threw it over his shoulder, hoping he would have caught it. He looked back just to make sure, but as he did something threw him back 10 feet. His shoulder was hit by something powerful, and he looked up to see that there was a Necron standing above him, his weapon pointed at his face, within the split second he grabbed his bolter pistol, and pulled the trigger in its face, over and over, again until his magazine had emptied. Overwhelmed by being so close to the enemy, he thought this would be it. _Well damn, goodbye 13__th__ skull, it appears I have failed to die in honor._ But before he knew it, moments passed and he was back behind Aifele, who was firing his bolter with one hand, and throwing a grenade with the other.

"Get up! Get for the love of the Primarch get up Crys!" Shouted a familiar voice, it was Kelic. His helm was damaged badly by a Necron weapon. Crys got up, and voxed to the orbital command of _Inferno_ their leading fleet ship for a request of backup assistance. A deep metallic voice was voxed into his helm: "This is the commands deck aboard _Inferno_ why do you need backup, 13th skull?" the voice said.

"We are being overrun by the Necrons, they are reviving and I don't how they are doing so!" he exclaimed.

"There must be a Necron lord nearby, since this is the case, I'll send some terminators, and a Lemon Russ tank. That should be enough to save your little squad isn't it?" the voice sneered. _I hate him, even as Imperium soldiers, I hated him._ His sarcasm is what made Crys the angriest, he started to shake his fists, in a rage along side with the stimulants and chemicals implanted into him by his armor caused him to pulse with an undying hatred that has lasted for over 10,000 years. He didn't like it, and he didn't like the ship he had to serve under. Unlike most of the other regiments his was really nothing to be fond of because of the cockiness the fleet command gave them. He wondered why their Primarch had elected such a bastard to be a commander after the Heresy. Despite his ever growing animosity, he needed support. Within moments later, pods were dropping into the battle torn earth, crashing and throwing all around them back. The doors ripped open and dropped down to the ground, with a clang. Within the darkness of the drop pod, a hulking heavy noise came emitting from within. As Crys watched, the Terminators within came out, there powerfists at the ready, and activated. The twin bolters mounted within opened fire upon the relentless Necrons. The heavy shells ripping apart the undying machines, this proved to be effective, however.

With most of the Necrons being pushed back, the squad of the 13th skull moved in, joining in with their oversized terminators, forcing the oncoming Necrons down. With dual bolters mounted on wrists, it is twice the damage. As the decimating damage laid waste to the machines of walking death, Crys now had a handle of the situation at hand. He called for a relocation of his squad, and as they reformed they began a tactical assault, more rather a counter. He positioned his squad to move towards the higher ground to the right. As they moved on to go up the hills, they found it was clean. Or so they had hoped so. They lined themselves behind a wall of dead rock spires. With the good coverage and fire zone, it was a great strategic location for them. They began to hail down on the oncoming Necrons. The Necrons seemed to be rather mindless in Crys's own mind. He liked this opportunity. He was grinning while he hailed down on them with bolter shells. But what he thought a good victory was all for naught. The ground began to shift under his feet. He stopped firing for a moment. He looked around his helms visors trying to search what was moving in the ground. And before he knew it, he heard an agonizing scream. He twirled around on one foot looking in shock at what he saw.

There stood Kil'ned, in the air, a long claw impaling his abdomen. Then another one slid through, so sickly and so effortlessly it made Crys cringe. Nothing could rip apart ceramite warplate so easily. But then the claws pulled away from each other, ripping Kil'ned completely in half. The machine threw each part of the body in different directions. He laid there, his blood and organs spilling out. He was twitching furiously, his body spasms seemingly unnatural.

"G-G-Gaaaaaaah!" Shrieked Kil'ned. Aifele, with not a moment to spare began to firing upon the thing that killed Kil'ned. The thing was a something of the average Necron, the face and torso were the same, but its arms were quite long and thing, and it didn't have legs either. Its spine was very long and led all the way to the ground, every once and a while moving side to side. As the fire from Aifele's Bolter landed hits on it, the rest of his squad did so too. It died very quickly before it could escape back into the shadows. Crys ran over to Kil'ned's body, kneeling before him.

"Kil'ned, brother, you alright? Can you hear me? Are you still breathing?" All his questioning was not for naught. Kil'ned who lay unmoving began to cough violently, his body sending spasms again. He looked up at Crys, his visors seemingly staring directly into him.

"Crys, I want you to… C-Crys…I w-want…Grant, death me…Please…" said Kil'ned. His words mixing up. Crys shook his head in dismay. He wouldn't let his brother die.

"There is no need for that Kil'ned! Just you wait, we'll get your back together, and I mean your bleeding has stopped." said Crys trying to knock some sense into Kil'ned.

"There is no hope for Kil'ned, Crys." said Aifele.


End file.
